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chapter-620

April soon came to an end. In April, the Pro Alliance held a total of five matches. There were only two matches remaining now. The positions of many teams on the rankings list were already determined. The first place spot in the regular season looked as if it would be taken by Team Blue Rain. For all five matches in April, Team Blue Rain had performed consistently well and were currently five points ahead of the second place team, Samsara. Their opponents in the next two matches had no hope of making it to the playoffs and wouldn’t get relegated either way. These types of opponents wouldn’t try very hard for these upcoming matches. Under this type of situation, allowing Samsara to close the five point gap wasn’t Team Blue Rain’s style, so nearly everyone agreed that Team Blue Rain would take first during the regular season.

As for second, third, and fourth places, after the five matches in April, there were only slight differences in points, but their rankings stayed the same: Samsara, Tiny Herb, and Tyranny. After them, Team Misty Rain was locked into fifth place and Team Void was locked into sixth. Their spots in the playoffs were also firmly set.

In seventh place was Team 301. They could still lose their playoff spot, but the probability of that happening was extremely low. In other words, it would be a miracle if they managed to lose their spot. Miracles didn’t happen often, so everyone also treated their playoff spot as fixed.

Team Wind Howl and Team Thunderclap were fighting for the final ticket to the playoffs. Their former competitor, Team Royal Style, had no possibility of making it through anymore. As for Team Hundred Blossoms, they were in a similar situation as Team 301. The only difference was that instead of the possibility of losing their playoff spot, they could be relegated in theory.

As a result, for the next two matches, fans of Team Wind Howl and Team Thunderclap were the most worried, but no matter what, one of these two teams would not make it to the playoffs. This was the cruel nature of competition.

In comparison to the fight for the playoff spot, the relegation spots weren’t watched as much. There were a total of 38 matches in a season and 380 points possible. To be last or second to last among the twenty teams indicated that the two relegated teams were truly terrible teams. It didn’t mean that these two teams wouldn’t have any fans, but they usually didn’t have as many fans as other teams, so the attention given to them was naturally less than the other teams.

But this year was an exception. Team Excellent Era had once reigned over the professional scene, but this season, they looked as if they were determined to get relegated. Whether it was experts, fans, or the media, no one thought that Team Excellent Era would ever get relegated. However, Team Excellent Era seemed to like to create miracles and was about to turn this dream into a reality.

Unfortunately, this was a miracle for haters and a disaster for fans.

As for the twentieth place team, Mysterious Fantasy, it didn’t matter what they did in the last two matches. They would be relegated regardless, but for this team, which had been last place the entire season, no one cared about whether they survived or died. Excellent Era, on the other hand, had continued to drop to second to last place and raised much criticism from everyone.

However, because Excellent Era could still place outside of relegations, quite a few analyzed their past results. Even though many fans saw that Excellent Era seemed to be determined to get relegated, in reality, they were just barely outside the relegation zone most of the time. It was only their second time breaking through the door to relegations.

When did the first time happen?

The fans of Excellent Era quickly remembered. At that time, it was still winter. Their captain for seven years, Ye Qiu, had announced his retirement. The exceptional talent, Sun Xiang, who had already been regarded as a God, joined Excellent Era and inherited the legendary Battle God, One Autumn Leaf.

At that time, some were disappointed. Some were hopeful. Some hoped for a miracle.

And now a miracle had truly occurred!

Except this wasn’t the miracle that they had expected. Even when Excellent Era had fallen to second to last place for the first time that winter and the feelings of the fans were ice-cold like the weather, none of them would have ever imagined something like this could happen, but now, they were second to last place and the eighteenth place team, Bright Green, was five points ahead of them.

What a coincidence. This was the same point difference between Samsara and Blue Rain, but because of Team Blue Rain’s consistency, everyone thought that Blue Rain would definitely come in first, but in this case? Everyone thought that the situation was the exactly the same because Excellent Era was also very consistent. The only difference was that Blue Rain was consistently good, while Excellent Era was consistently bad. These two teams used to be regarded as powerhouses, but now their definitions of consistency were the opposite of each other. Fortunately, Blue Rain didn’t have any enmity towards Excellent Era. If Blue Rain had been Excellent Era’s long time rival, Tyranny, such a definite comparison would have gotten Excellent Era even more ridicule.

Even so, Excellent Era received a lot of mockery. After all, a tall tree attracts the wind. Many people hoped to see them fail! It was just that they could only fantasize Excellent Era getting relegated. Who would have thought that it would actually become reality? It truly was a miracle. Countless people were dying from laughter right now.

The fans of Excellent Era were unexpectedly calm though. Apart from growing numb to Excellent Era’s disastrous performances, the work done by Excellent Era’s PR department was starting to take effect. In one of their statements, they stated that this season was “incredibly disappointing” and that the team was in an “unprecedented crisis”. They also expressed that the Club had been “working their hardest”, but the “problem could not be resolved.”

In their statement, they even mentioned contacting the retired captain Ye Qiu, hoping that Ye Xiu would act as an advisor and help them find their problem. Unfortunately, Ye Qiu declined.

This was without a doubt a method of shifting everyone’s attention to somewhere else. They expressed that they had been working hard the entire time, while also tactfully explaining one of the reasons that they had been unable to resolve the problem. When the statement came out, Chen Guo slammed the table in anger, but many fans believed their words and started to criticize Ye Qiu. Ye Xiu himself heard the statement, but simply replied: “It’s the truth!”

“It’s true, but how can they spin it like that! It’s like they’re blaming your for their problems!” Chen Guo continued to vent.

At this moment, Wei Chen looked strangely at Chen Guo: “Are you saying it’s not his fault? If he didn’t wipe out their team in game, no matter how terrible Excellent Era performed, they wouldn’t be in such a messed up jumble that they might even end up getting relegated.”

“They reap what they sow.” Chen Guo refuted.

“Women! Weak, kind-hearted, and they don’t listen to reason! It’s an inborn trait.” Wei Chen sighed.

“Let’s stop arguing.” Ye Xiu hastily urged them to stop.

“Excellent Era getting relegated is my fault.” Ye Xiu expressed with sorrow. He didn’t wait for Chen Guo to refute and immediately continued: “But how would I have known that wiping them out in game would turn out like this? No one would have imagined that such actions would have so severe a consequence? But you can’t deny their current record either. They’re still young. They still have chances. They shouldn’t give up so easily. I don’t know what they plan on doing in the future. Too much has been happening recently. I want to be by myself for a bit. If you don’t need me for anything, I’ll be leaving.”

Ye Xiu took out a cigarette after speaking. Wei Chen and Chen Guo looked at one another. After a while, Chen Guo turned to Wei Chen and asked: “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“......”

In the end, Excellent Era was relegated. On May 13th, Glory’s eighth regular season came to an end.

Blue Rain, Samsara, Tiny Herb, Tyranny, Misty Rain, Void, 301, and Thunderclap entered the playoffs. The other teams were on break for the next week. Excellent Era and Mysterious Fantasy were relegated. In the Alliance’s history, relegations almost always meant the disappearance of a team. Except this time, a formerly glorious team like Excellent Era had been relegated, bringing about numerous discussions.

Some began to hold a memorial service for the end of an era, while others were confident that Excellent Era would rise again.

At the end, Club Excellent Era expressed clearly that this season had been a disaster, but it didn’t spell their end. Soon afterwards, they said a string of placating words to their fans. Their team’s ace player, Sun Xiang, wouldn’t be leaving the team because of this disaster.

Not many trusted their words though until Sun Xiang personally said so in an interview that he would get through these troubling days together with Excellent Era. At the same time, he spoke of how much care he had received from the Club ever since he had joined the Club, proving that, even though he had only been with Excellent Era for half a year, their relationship wasn’t limited by time. He definitely wouldn’t waver because they had been relegated.

“In next season’s Challenger League, I’ll lead Excellent Era back onto the pro stage!” Sun Xiang confidently said to the interviewer.

This concluded the interview, making Chen Guo want to puke.

Sun Xiang obviously wasn’t the only person the interviewer wanted to interview.

Excellent Era’s other extremely popular player, the All Star, Su Mucheng. There was also the vice captain Liu Hao, who had performed quite well throughout the season. There were also the main and substitute players. The interviewer wanted to interview as many people in Excellent Era as possible.

But unfortunately, whether it was because these people didn’t want to be interviewed or if the Club told them not to, they all refused every interviews. This caused the keen media people to think that Excellent Era wasn’t as calm as they pretended to be. Under this calm cover, what were they going to do next?

But right now wasn’t a good time to dig up this information. After a two week break, it would be the season playoffs. The competition to see who would be the champions of this season would begin. No matter the situation, these eight teams would undoubtedly be the highlight of the entire Glory scene.